7 Crazy Facts From Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad AMA

Los Pollos Hermanos is coming.

Saul Goodman and his mechanical bull wouldn't exist if Vince Gilligan hadn't been unemployed. After finishing work on The X-Files, his best friend, another former writer on the sci-fi series, cracked a joke about putting a meth lab in an RV and traveling America—you know, just for kicks. This and other interesting factoids emerged from Vince Gilligan's candid Ask Me Anything on Reddit last night. We cobbled together our favorites pertaining to Breaking Bad.

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A Breaking Bad-inspired restaurant is not out of the question:

"This is not an idea that I generated personally," Gilligan says of Pollos Hermanos. "But it's one that's been presented to me, through the good folks at Sony, and the idea came to them from a businessman who has an interest in doing just that."

Aaron Paul very much fit the bill for Jesse Pinkman:

"Aaron Paul very much fit the bill of my interpretation of Jesse Pinkman from the get-go. Otherwise we wouldn't have hired him. But having said that, a great deal of Aaron's personality and goodness then became a part of the character of Jesse Pinkman as the show progressed. In other words - we the writers were inspired by Aaron's specific qualities as a human being, and we incorporated many of those qualities into the character of Jesse Pinkman."

On which Breaking Bad death hit him the hardest:

"I have to say the death of Walter White affected me the most, because what it represented was the end of the story and the completion of this seven year journey we had taken together—the cast, crew, writers, and directors of Breaking Bad. That was the most affecting death to write. I actually teared up when I wrote it. I think a close second was the death of Mike Ehrmantraut."

He didn't expect the pizza throwing scene to become a thing either:

"No, I never anticipated that the pizza-throwing scene would be one of the 'non-submergible' moments of Breaking Bad. None of us did. It seemed like a fun thing to include in the episode at the time, but none of the writers of the series thought it would take on a life of its own. Thank you for asking that question, because it once again gives me the opportunity to say: For any of the folks who want to throw pizza on the roof of the White house, it's very unfair to the sweet lady that lives there. Please, please do not do it."

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On who was the biggest Breaking Bad prankster:

"Probably Bryan Cranston. He loved to tease Aaron Paul mercilessly. This came about after I told Aaron Paul early in the series that I had planned to kill off his character. From then on, every time a new script came out, Bryan would hurry to read it first so he could put on a sorrowful face and say to Aaron, 'Gee buddy, I'm so sorry. You're going out with a bang, at least.' And Aaron, God bless him, seemed to fall for it every time."

On why he chose Saul for a spin-off:

"There's no perfect answer to that question, other than to say that creating a spin-off series related to Saul Goodman was an idea that we batted around pretty much since the creation of the character. We always loved writing for Saul Goodman throughout the run of Breaking Bad."

Why he thinks Breaking Bad resonated with viewers:

"I wish I knew! Although I'm certainly glad viewers did connect with Walter White. In the early days of the series—when I was at my most foolish—I deliberately tried to make Walter White so unlikeable that his behavior would shed viewers. In hindsight, I think that was extraordinarily dumb of me, but I have to admit that by the end of the series, I myself did not have a whole lot of sympathy for Walter White ... I'm glad viewers still rooted for him up till the end and wanted him to live. Hell, even my mom did! ... I think Walter White was smart, active, willful, and that's what we look for in our heroes. The fact that he was engaged in some pretty heinous criminal behavior might have been a bit beside the point.

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